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A Fishy Business…

CAUTION! Today is All Fools’ Day… here in France, as well as the usual pranks that we associate with 1st April, kids cut out paper fish and try to stick them on unsuspecting people’s backs.  If anyone is caught out they are called a ‘poisson d’avril’!  Hilarity ensues…

So how did this fishy tradition come about?  Well, according to my non-extensive research, way back in the sixteenth century the new year was celebrated on April first, based on the Julian calendar. Then mad, bad, King Charles IX came along and decided that everybody should be following the Gregorian calendar, which starts the new year on January 1st.

Not everyone welcomed this crazy, new-fangled system and some continued to celebrate April 1st as the first day of the year. Allegedly, those people were mocked and referred to as ‘April fools’.  Quite how this then became a tradition of pasting a fish on unsuspecting people’s backs and calling them April fish is unclear.

Theories abound about the fishy origins, from new little fishes that appear in the rivers at this time that are witless and easily caught, to some Christian/ Easterish symbolism. Then there are these strange cards which were sent to nearest and dearest, often anonymously…

And best of all, somewhere along the line, chocolate and pastry fish turned up too! 

Hurrah! A lovely shoal of chocolate poissons.